Each month, SOTF hosts various contests on the site, the most notable of which are the Best Kill and Best Death contests. Winners of said contests receive prizes that will be beneficial to either their character or themselves. Voting for these contests will take place here!

V4 BKA/BDA Voting: April 2011

Once again, here's this month's BKA/BDA. If you weren't in by the deadline, or by your extension deadline, you've been disqualified, per procedure. If there's a mistake, drop a staffer a PM and we'll get things fixed ASAP.

This will run through whenever on the 1st the announcement goes up (or later, if there is any delay).

Anyone with an extension is getting bumped to next month's contest so that we stay on schedule.

I'll be the first to say it. This month's BKA and BDA were boooooring. There really wasn't any competition to choose from for this month, there's really only a few that deserve it in my eyes. And here they are:

BKA: Joe Rios for the killing of Mike Maszer and that other guy Alan Rickhall

We've got nothing short of pretty standardised deaths this month. Joe Rios' kills stood out from the pack because of the way they were done. A scythe happens to be the best weapon of choice for killing, see Lulu last season and Michael on The Program V1 on Mini., and as such, it just so happens that not one, but TWO people are done in by that very weapon this month! I especially liked how disturbing each of the kills were for the victims, and...well, that's really all I can go into without sounding too much like a sociopath in the descriptions! >_> <_< But yeah, Joe Rios, all the way.

BDA: ...

Okay, okay, my choice is going to go against popular opinion by a mile, but ultimately, this girl has had one of the biggest impacts on the game as such in v4. You can't do what Liz Polanski has done without going out in a death any short of awesome. Look at Ethan Kent. Same deal. And he won BDA as well. Liz's death was just...it was the best of story's writing, and you can really tell she spent a month on it, like Toben said, because it was just that wonderfully written, showing off the best of the character while going down in an ultimately bittersweet way. My ultimate pick for BDA this month.

Just as an interjection towards a slight trend I've been starting to see lately. There's no need to criticise the other deaths/kills in the poll whilst making your choices. Pick the ones you liked best, without the commentary on the rest of the pool of competition.

I'm going to start with BDA, as it was the easier of the two choices to make.

BDA: Milo Taylor
Holy hell, Sean. Just... really. Milo's death is not the goriest in the game. It probably isn't even the goriest this month, and it's not particularly the most emotionally disturbing, but it doesn't need to fit either superlative. This is because it brings a high amount of tension, emotion, and of course, blood to the table in a rather potent mixture. It doesn't have to be the best at anything because it has a little of everything. As one of the shorter deaths, it's to the point and a nice, easy read. There's nothing pretentious about this death, nothing overly dramatic. As such, it's my pick.

BKA was a much harder decision to make, but I do have to vote for somebody, soo...

BKA: Josie Vernon
Have I ever mentioned there's something seriously fucked up about having to put your friends out of their misery? Arguments could go on for hours about whether or not Josie did the right thing, but there's no question that the poor girl didn't enjoy it at all. To smother Thierra with the pillow, holding down her friend as she kicks and struggles, trying to scream for help... but she can't be heard, because she's being fucking smothered! And Josie just has to keep holding her down, sloooooowly killing her. Yeah, you can tell I liked this one a lot, can't you?

Something about this was just... absolutely haunting. His death, like the poster above me said, wasn't extremely gory, or overly dramatic or depressing, but it just struck with me. The boy hadn't been completely there the entire time he was on the island, and the first time that he truly realized what was occuring, possibly the first moment of clarity in his life, he's shocked with thousands of volts and then his collar explodes as he pleads with a friend to save him, to make the pain stop. It's torture for Milo, it's Torture for Aileen, and... Yeah. This was amazingly written, props definitely for Sean.

BKA: Josie Vernon - As Written by ZombieXCreame

Another haunting death. Josie snapped, obviously, but not in a way anyone would generally think of. Her sense of life and death, what protection means versus happiness... Becomes so warped that she no longer can tell the difference between wrong or right. And really, it makes the reader question themselves too. Is it wrong to protect your friend physically when they can not be mentally shielded? I've never seen a piece of writing that made me question myself on this site, so I really think Chelsea deserves the BKA this month.

Best Kill: Josie Vernon
This was a completely amazing scene. It brilliantly showcased the total lack of hope and the different sorts of insanity that can come into play as a result of the time on the island. It's easy to sympathize with Josie, who thinks she is doing the right thing, and then that is completely undercut by her realization that, in fact, Sierra was struggling to stay alive. This is one of the best kill/death scenes of the entire version, complete with emotion and horror, and is easily the best kill of this month.

Best Death: Mirabelle Nesa
This month had some really great deaths. That said, Mirabelle's death stood out as especially impressive. Grim is a great writer, and he brought a huge amount of emotion and drama to an already-tense scene. Mirabelle remains in character and defiant to the very end, and her death itself is beautifully handled. This is one of the few cases in which a cut-away functions perfectly, creating all the implication that could be desired without going into needless detail at any point. It is a totally excellent death.

This one I'm going to with Laz for BDA (Rashid) and BKA for Harun for killing him. These two have been thick as thieves for a little while now and I'll say it's probably the one death / kill scene that had the most character development and interesting motivation behind it. There were others as well however this is my pick.

BDA
I vote Liz Polanski here. Sure, it was an important moment in the overall plot of V4, but that has very little to do with why I'm voting for it. I'm voting for it because it was a beautiful, tragic, understated, piece of poetic minimalism. Liz always had that quality to her writing, which made her posts quite fun to read. That level of terseness, of really crisp images and starkly phrased statements working like blunt instruments. It's at its most effective here, not just because of what was written, but because of what was left unsaid. The final parts involving Mr. Kwong are touching, sure, but they're... brief. Very brief. They leave you wanting more and wanting for her to have lived long enough to have said more. It's a beautiful little tragedy.

BKA
I vote for Josie Vernon in this category. Good God. This was heartbreaking. This was a spectacularly deep, realistic, poignant insight into the head of... not a murderer. A poor girl. A girl who made a choice- almost definitely the wrong choice and an awful choice, but not one I think I'll ever be able to hate her for. You can't feel hate when a post is written like this. Any writer can have their character descend into murder or madness on this island, but very, very few can pull it off like this.

I really applaud both of you guys. Posts like this are why I read SotF.

BKA: Harun Kemal
In my mind, the BKA is for the kill that all the guys at Danya HQ end up talking about around the watercooler, or alternatively the one that generates the biggest buzz amongst the fanbase - and I can see this one being a hit on YouTube. It's an excellent fight in and of itself, quick and brutal. Adding to that is the history of the characters and their time on the island. It's not just a random act of violence between two strangers, and that's what makes it really great. They've both seen a lot of stuff go down, and this is just the latest and greatest. One of them snapped. The other was forced to kill him. It's hard to say who had it worse.

BDA: Milo Taylor
Like Harun (and Rashid), Milo hasn't necessarily called too much attention to himself on the island. He's kept his head down, teamed up with someone who ostensibly knows what they're doing, hoped for escape, just like almost anyone would. And then, inevitably, it all just turned against him. As stated above, it' not extremely gory, it doesn't try to play the reader's heartstrings, it's not over-the-top. This is just your everyman, dying a horrible, hopeless death. And that's tragedy.